How to deal with wall-mounted TV cables as a renter
Cables spill from beneath the set, dangling like ropes of black snot over the pristine antique white walls. You'd cut a hole in the gypsum and thread them to the baseboard, but it's a rental. Can't touch it. Sitting there, trying to watch the game but ever-distracted by those god-damned cables, you curse the people who stage the pictures in the ads — and yourself for getting duped by them.
Or you could read this thread at Apartment Therapy.
Me? I'd just cut the hole behind the set, then get it properly fixed before moving out. No compromises!
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Me? I'd hire an electrician from the buildings approved list and get him or her to put a proper plug behind the TV and fish all the other wires for you.
If you thread an AC power cord through drywall and there is a insurable accident anywhere in the apartment you are screwed. Fire, flood, locusts doesn't matter. Insurance is not going to cover you.
use surface conduit
http://www.flatwirestore.com/
The IKEA Benno is a modest two drawer cabinet with a large panel extending upwards from the rear edge. The panel is reinforced to hang your TV and has a hole in the center of the panel through which you can run cables into the semi-glass fronted shelf/drawers. See: http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/30133942
Someone needs to invent furniture that supports wall mointed TV's.
This is what I think is needed. Essentially a coffee table with the legs cut short. Makes the TV into a pillar. For the guy with the cable box. If you can't run the cable along the baseboard to a shelf somewhere. Mount the cable box on the back of the table, cut a whole mount a mirror to bounce the signal to the vertical mounted box.
Maybe that would look like crap, but there has to be a type of furniture that would work in these situations. without just adding all the depth that a wall mounted TV should be saving you.
if you don't want to damage the wall, how did you get that wall mount bolted in there in the first place?
I've got the Ikea Bonde system (http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/90086805) and (http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/00086796). I just didn't install the back when putting it together. It fits my wall-mounted LCD perfect (within a quarter inch total clearance), and looks rather nice.
I whish I had your problems. This apartment is so god-damn old and in such a bad state, I wouldn't dare hang my 1.000 EURO TV on a wall when even a 500 gramm Ikea lamp came crashing down (with screws and rawlplugs and all) after just two days.
Why are people so afraid of wires?
A television is an appliance, not a fashon accessory, just plug it into the wall.
Would you try to hide the cable on a box fan you stick in your window on a particularly hot day?
@#9: Why bother with paint on your drywall? Or hell, why bother with drywall and finished floors at all. A house is just a box for living and that's how it should look.
A building will usually outlive you and get inherited by someone else. You're just it's occupant for a few years and you should leave it in better shape than you found it.
I agree that it'd be a really Bad Idea to run the cord into the wall. Maybe straight through it in a nice big, smooth hole, but no pulling random cables into the void in my home. Most apartments are periodically inspected, and if I were your landlord and the inspector found and fined me for that shit, you wouldn't be renewing your lease.
Also, these sort of hacked together solutions tend not to get fixed when tenants or owners move out which makes major headaches for future owners.
In this situation, I'd put in some nice shiny surface conduit and leave it bare and industrial lookin', but that's just me.
Most hardware stores carry long plastic runners that use light adhesive to stick to the wall and can hold a few cables. They might be a little too hotel/institutional for some tastes but they definitely do the job without leaving marks.
Paint your walls black. Jeez, do I have to do all the thinkin' around here?
Break in the night before you sign the lease and quickly drill a few holes in the wall and report them on the "dude, it was already like this when I moved in" report.
They'll never suspect anything.
I have lathe walls, there is no cable running for me. I use a combination of table and PVC piping (decorated) to hid my many cables.
My drywall skills are quite lacking but even I would feel fine with doing this sort of install and repair before moving - if I gave enough of a damn to need to hide the cables (actually I like exposed cables for access in the event of other problems).
If this sort of project is beyond you, you might want to grab a book from the library and update your knowledge/skills with one of the most common building materials you will encounter in modern western life.
I own my own home, but really...pretty easy to just use a stud finder to mount the stuff and then drop the wires behind the wall and use a grommit for both holes. When you move, spackle and paint and you'll never know it was even there.
ZuZu #3
Nice try, but FlatWire is not UL/NEC/CSA rated for 120V/15A AC. For all other audio, video and data uses it's great stuff.
However they are working on it:
DeCorp FlatWire Electrical Cable
Put a pot of Hedera Helix on the floor and train it up the cables. In a few weeks (okay, months probably) no visible wires!
I used to have that problem and then my wife finally got on my A** on day to do something about it. Regular outlet wouldn't work because it stuck out too much. Found a great, cheap solution just used one of these Recessed Power Plugs to mount my LCD TV on the wall. It even has a place next to the recessed outlet to feed the A/V wire through the wall. Cheaper than other options I looked at.